Patient transfers and Nurse ergonomics

[Joe V]

Nurses are at risk for numerous musculoskeletal injuries from lifting/handling patients. A "No Lift" policy is common practice in hospitals and LTC facilities. The Hoyer lift invention was a boon for Nurses. It's probably the most common lift equipment utilized today and is certainly the oldest. Although this lift is an expensive piece of equipment, I don't think that using our fellow colleagues to help transfer a patient is a good idea even IF his name is Hoyer.

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[calivianya, BSN, RN]

I am very fortunate in that at my full time job, every room has a ceiling lift. They can only support up to 400 pounds, so we have several rooms that have double lifts to support up to 800 pounds for our heavier patients. Past 800 pounds, I think we are SOL.

We leave lift sheets on the bed as a bottom sheet when we have them, so turning the patient requires no hard work. We still have to use physical labor to roll the patient over to change sheets/clean up incontinence, but that's it.

Occasionally we run out of lift sheets, which just makes me mad. There is no point in having ceiling lifts if there aren't lift sheets under the patients!

[Davey Do]

Speaking of Hoyer...

[Davey Do]

Have you ever noticed that Hospital Equipment have Personalities? Their Personalities are not always good:

[Davey Do]

Some Hospital Equipment have Personalities that are difficult:

[Rocknurse, MSN, APRN, NP]

We had the ceiling lifts too which are great, however people wouldn't use them. I always tried to because I have a medical condition that causes me pain if I lift patients but other nurses would complain it took too long and often said that it was easier just to lift them. If I insisted on using them then they'd roll their eyes. Nurses really are their own worst enemy.

[jm_emt]

Has anyone had experience with patients acting out (i.e., kicking, flailing around) because of pain, fear, or disorientation during Hoyer lift transfer with a sling? Dementia patients in particular might be easily disorientated when being hoisted in a sling.

It seems like patients with arthritis, muscle pain, cancer pain, post-operative pain, etc. would be likely to respond negatively and unpredictably to being bent and compressed as they are raised in flexible slings.

My interest is knowing the limits of the current state-of-the-art transfer systems and how to design a less painful and less intrusive (i.e., more patient-friendly) transfer mechanism. From the caregiver's perspective, it should also be a safer and more efficient/faster transfer mechanism.